The genealogical and historical document communities have recognized the value in unlocking and providing access to historical documents in digital format as digitized images with indexed, searchable, enhanced, viewable data. Furthermore, leaders in the industry leverage image processing algorithms to better enhance and present document images to viewers. The ability to properly register, segment, and field the information on documents are prerequisite steps for higher-level operations such as handwriting recognition, hit-highlighting, context-aware tips and pop-ups, etc.
Unfortunately, many historical documents are damaged or degraded due to age, poor preservation, deterioration, and damage resulting from both man-made and natural disasters. Portions of pages may be burned, faded, torn, obscured, water-damaged, or otherwise missing or unreadable. Hence, robust methods for document registration that work reliably with historical documents are needed.